Return to Winter: Russia, China, and the New Cold War Against America (24 page)

Indeed, despite the extraordinary American military advantage, the U.S. is actually losing ground against the Axis in almost every area. In Washington, policy planners cut budgets with no plan for what they are trying to achieve; we lack not only an overarching strategy, but also a practical framework for what we decide upon. The Russians and Chinese, by contrast, while not immune to some policy confusion and disagreements of their own, are for the most part clear in their articulation of broad goals and consistent in the actions—economic, financial, strategic—needed to achieve them.

“History and the present tell us unambiguously that we require vast reserves of strength used judiciously, sparingly where possible, overwhelmingly when appropriate, precisely, quickly, and effectively,” writes Mark Helprin. “Now we have vanishing and insufficient strength used injudiciously, promiscuously, slowly, and ineffectively.”
¹⁰⁰
Indeed: The shadows of what we face are rapidly materializing into real-world problems.

A skeptic might say: Even if the United States is pulling back on its military might, it still has its nuclear deterrent—not just an offensive nuclear arsenal but also the installations and technologies that protect the homeland against attack. How dangerous can things be? The answer: very dangerous, because (as our next chapter will show) we are systematically dismantling our offensive and defensive nuclear capacities as well.

CHAPTER 5

Nuclear Security: They Build Up, We Build Down

“We closely watched last night’s events. They were successful. We tested an intercontinental ballistic missile which I call ‘a missile defense killer.’ Neither modern nor future American missile defense means will be able to stop this missile from hitting its target directly.”

—
RUSSIAN DEPUTY PREMIER DMITRI ROGOZIN
¹

“Our policy, relentlessly pursued by the president, is to disarm. As China and Russia invigorate their defense industrial bases, we diminish ours. We are stripping our nuclear deterrent to and beyond the point where it will encourage proliferation among opportunistic states, endow China with parity, and make a first strike against us feasible.”

—
MARK HELPRIN
²

“Historians will look back at the present moment with astonishment that Iran so skillfully outwitted the West. They will note the breathtaking naiveté of American and European officials who let a brutal theocracy undermine Western interests throughout the Middle East. At one of Iran’s most vulnerable moments, America threw the mullahs a life-line; an ill-conceived nuclear deal . . . ”

—
DAVID KEYES
³

“We build, they build. We stop, they build.”

—
REPRESENTATIVE MIKE ROGERS, QUOTING A FORMER DEFENSE SECRETARY, ON TREATIES WITH RUSSIA
⁴

E
ven by North Korea’s standards, the threats sounded pretty disturbing. “Intercontinental ballistic missiles and various other missiles, which have already set their striking targets, are now armed with lighter, smaller, and diversified nuclear warheads and are placed on a standby status,” said Army General Kang Pyo Yong at a mass rally in Pyongyang. “When we shell [the missiles], Washington, which is the stronghold of evils . . . will be engulfed in a sea of fire.”
⁵
The international community had grown accustomed to North Korean threats, but these seemed more serious. A few weeks earlier, the Pyongyang regime had threatened South Korea with “final destruction.”
⁶

Many were therefore not surprised when the news broke that the United States would deploy 14 new missile interceptors in Alaska in response to the bellicose words and deeds of North Korea. The additional interceptors would be installed by 2017 and, added to 30 already in place on the West Coast, would bring the U.S. total to 44.

“The reason that we are doing what we are doing,” said Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, “and the reason we are advancing our program here for homeland security is to not take any chances, is to stay ahead of the threat and to assure any contingency.”
⁷

What Hagel did not say was that the U.S. would effectively pay for the redeployment by cancelling the last phase of its planned missile shield in Poland and Romania.
⁸
That last phase, which had involved missile interceptors, had been the most vital. This decision, as noted in Chapter 1, was tantamount to unilateral American withdrawal from missile defense in Western Europe. For years, the Obama administration had been saying that it was crucial to stop the Iranian pursuit of a nuclear bomb and to help defend our allies against it. Now, with no sign that the Iranian threat—aided and abetted by Russian support—had abated, we had pulled our resources out and moved them to the Pacific.

The U.S. retreat from missile defense is even more worrisome given our domestic failures in this area. In July 2013, at Vandenberg
Air Force Base in California, an advanced missile interceptor failed to hit its target over the Pacific Ocean—the eighth failed test of the U.S. missile-defense system in 16 tries. The U.S. hasn’t held a successful test since 2008. It’s hard not to see the flagging program as intricately linked with the Obama administration’s blasé attitude toward missile defense—and its comfort level with starving the Pentagon, especially in the nuclear area.

Because the truth is, missile defense is only part of the nuclear equation. More broadly, the United States is retreating across the board when it comes to nuclear defenses and nuclear armaments, all while the Russians and Chinese expand their stockpiles—particularly of ballistic missiles—and modernize their capabilities. The fledgling nuclear programs in Iran and North Korea (with the North Koreans’ considerably more advanced) will soon be capable of enriching uranium for dozens of warheads. Just one is enough to change the strategic calculus for their respective regions.

Against this determined armaments race, the United States has taken an equally determined stand to build down. President Obama’s stated goal, over the long term, is to reach nuclear zero—a world without nuclear weapons. Ronald Reagan professed the same goal. But whereas Reagan believed the best way to get there was remaining strong and convincing our would-be adversaries it would be foolhardy to challenge us in the nuclear area (or any other), Obama seems to think that nations such as Russia and China will be persuaded to lay down their arms by seeing that we have laid down ours.

The Obama administration stunned many in 2010 by declaring that the United States would limit the instances in which it will use nuclear weapons—even in defense of the homeland—and that the Pentagon will
not
develop a new generation of nuclear weapons.
⁹
In 2013, three years after agreeing with the Russians to a limit of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads, Obama declared his intention to cut the
U.S. nuclear arsenal by another one-third. It is this plan that retired Air Force Lieutenant General Thomas McInerney called
“the most dangerous thing I have ever seen an American president attempt to do
.”
¹⁰

Obama has delayed or outright terminated crucial defense programs. Besides the aforementioned European missile-defense shield, these cutbacks include scaling back programs such as the Airborne Laser program (which enables enemy-missile interceptions during the early launch phase) along with high-tech tools such as the Multiple Kill Vehicle and the Kinetic Energy Interceptor. The U.S. is delaying (or ignoring the need for) upgrades to nuclear ballistic-missile submarines and other crucial assets, and has not even made clear whether next-generation U.S. strategic bombers will be permitted to carry nuclear weapons.
¹¹
Our nuclear capabilities remain more expansive than either Russia’s or China’s, but that advantage is eroding and won’t last forever.

“As the stockpile shrinks in size,” says Mike Rogers, chairman of the House Armed Services Subcommittee on Strategic Forces, “we have reached the point where further reductions take on immense importance to the nation’s security.”
¹²
Such is the extent of Washington’s abandonment of our nuclear defenses—the arsenal that kept the peace during the Cold War and helped win it. Now, faced with equally determined if subtler adversaries, we seem to have forgotten the lessons of that struggle.

THE AMERICAN NUCLEAR RETREAT

In the 1964 film
Fail-Safe
, Henry Fonda plays an American president caught up in the ultimate Cold War nightmare scenario: He is informed that U.S. radar has picked up what looks to be an intrusion into American airspace by an unidentified flying object. The United States Strategic Air Command scrambles bombers toward pre-identified aerial points around the globe—they’re called fail-safe
points—to get into position and await a “go code” for launching attacks on Russian targets.

As the bombers near their destination, however, the flying object in U.S. airspace is identified: It’s an off-course commercial airliner. U.S. Command tries to cancel the alert, but the message is bungled; instead of telling the bombers to desist, it sends the “go code.” The bombers proceed to their targets, and U.S. Command cannot communicate with them, because Moscow has already jammed their signals. The U.S. bombers attack Moscow. Fonda as the American president is faced with an impossible choice: whether to brace for an all-out Russian counter-assault on multiple American cities—a nuclear holocaust—or order an American bomber to drop the same nuclear payload that hit Moscow on a U.S. city, in an effort to appease the Soviets and demonstrate good faith. Fonda opts for the second choice. The film ends with the bombs leveling New York.

Fail-Safe
was a classic film of its time, tapping into the fears of millions in an age of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD). If a remake were attempted today, Fonda’s president might find himself in a different situation: that of being the superpower that lacks sufficient nuclear firepower to respond. If the United States keeps on its present course, destruction will remain part of the equation—but it will no longer be mutual.

At the height of the Cold War, the United States had a stockpile in the range of 32,000 weapons. Perhaps that was excessive; perhaps nothing like that number was needed. It’s difficult to know. Today, however, we have gone so far in the other direction—toward disarmament, some of it unilateral—that we now have a different brand of excess. The United States, as this book goes to press, is on course to have a grand total of 1,550 deployed nuclear weapons on bombers, subs, and land-based missiles—the air, sea, and land components that make up the famous “triad” of our nuclear defenses. In fact, the
administration is considering cutting one leg of the triad, perhaps the land-based component. Whether that happens remains to be seen.
¹³

Experts regard the 1,550 nuke figure as much too small, considering all that our nuclear arsenal must enable us to do: Deter an attack on the homeland from Russia, China, and perhaps both; defend U.S. forces around the world; and protect more than 30 allies in Europe, the Far East, North America, and Australia. This is an awful lot to ask of a force facing such steep cuts. And it gets worse, because the Obama administration wants to cut further. The handwriting has been on the wall since the early days of Obama’s presidency. As a candidate, Obama announced his interest in the nuclear-zero dream. As president, he began working toward it—at least as it pertained to the United States.

In April 2010, Obama unveiled a new chapter in his nuclear doctrine, setting limits on the situations in which the United States would consider using nuclear weapons. While American policy was once vague on this point, Obama made explicit promises not to use nuclear weapons and to stop developing new ones. He promised not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states—even if they attacked the United States with chemical, biological, or Internet-based weapons.

“We are going to want to make sure that we can continue to move towards less emphasis on nuclear weapons,” the president said, “to make sure that our conventional weapons capability is an effective deterrent in all but the most extreme circumstances.”
¹⁴
This is an odd way for any head of state to prioritize his nation’s defenses—by first announcing all of the weapons that he will
not
use. Obama’s shift represented a sharp reversal of the policy that the Bush administration and most of Obama’s predecessors had followed; they had always sought to maintain a strong nuclear posture. Even Obama’s first secretary of defense, Bob Gates, opposed the new policy’s ban on new weapons.
¹⁵

Whether pursuing his disarmament goals unilaterally or as part of treaty arrangements with Moscow, President Obama has pressed the U.S. into aggressive disarmament. And even when he thinks he has Russian agreement, he doesn’t seem to realize that (a) the deals he’s made aren’t good from the American perspective and (b) that the Russians aren’t complying with them anyway. This is the situation that pertains with the latest major treaty signed between the two nations: New START.

The Fallacies of New START

“Even as this treaty allows Russia to strengthen their arsenal, President Obama remains hell-bent on weakening our own, while also suspending critical modernization of our strategic forces,” wrote Representative Trent Franks, a member of the Armed Services Committee, in 2011. “By pandering to Russia repeatedly throughout his administration, this President has managed to weaken our defenses, to betray trusted allies like Poland and the Czech Republic, and to once again put American interests on the backburner.”
¹⁶

Franks was referring to the Russian-American New START treaty, signed the previous year, the successor treaty to previous Cold War pacts. Those who review seriously the treaty’s terms would be hard-pressed to dismiss his conclusion: The treaty does nothing for American defenses while allowing the Russians to get away with proverbial murder. The terms of New START effectively allow Russia to continue to build up its arsenal even though the treaty’s stated purpose is to reduce nuclear arms.

“Since New START has come into force,” Franks writes, “Russia has been able to increase its nuclear armament yet still remain in compliance [with] treaty terms, which highlights precisely how ineffective
the treaty truly is.” New START is the capstone—so far—of President Obama’s “good faith” negotiating strategy with the Russians.

The treaty formally commits the United States and Russia to reducing their stockpiles of delivery systems and strategic warheads to 1,550 each over the next seven years, and to resume on-site inspections.
¹⁷
The treaty language also includes a nonbinding statement regarding missile defense, in which the United States and Russia acknowledge different interpretations of what the treaty says: Washington maintains that New START does not limit missile-defense systems, while Moscow insists that it does.
¹⁸

The treaty also includes reductions in delivery systems, such as launchers and bombers. The U.S. will make the larger cuts here, since its nuclear arsenal and delivery systems currently outpace Russia’s.
¹⁹
In fact, the United States will have to eliminate 240 deployed strategic warheads compared with just 16 for Russia. And while the U.S. will have to reduce its strategic delivery vehicles, the New START caps are actually
above
Russia’s current arsenal in this category—meaning that Moscow can
add
184 such vehicles, while Washington has committed to reducing its stockpile.